Milton was totally blind for the last twenty years of his life, yet he managed to produce a steady stream of writing, including his magnum opus, the ten-thousand-line epic poem “Paradise Lost,” composed between 1658 and 1664. Milton devoted the morning to solitary contemplation in bed, beginning at 4:00 A.M. (5:00 A.M. in the winter). First he had an aide read to him from the Bible for half an hour. Then Milton was left alone to compose as many lines as his memory could retain. At 7:00, Milton’s aide returned to take dictation—and if the aide happened to be running late, one early biographer noted, Milton “would complain, saying he wanted to be milked.” After dictation, the aide would read to him until lunch was served at noon. Then Milton walked up and down his garden for three or four hours. In the late afternoon and evening he received visitors, ate a light supper, smoked a pipe, and went to bed at about 9:00.

megachiropteran /meg-ə-kər-OPT-ər-ən/. noun or adjective. Of or pertaining to the suborder Megachiroptera, which includes herbivorous fruit bats and flying foxes. Despite the “mega” in the name, this order includes some microbats as small as 2.4 inches long! These bats are distinguished by smooth-crowned molars and a claw on the index finger.

“Moles and shrews still feed almost exclusively on insects, while various bat species (especially among the Megachiroptera, that other suborder) have attained much larger sizes and diverged into diets of fruit, nectar and pollen, fish, other bats, small birds and rodents, lizards, and blood.” (David Quammen)

Today in 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, USA, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivers his “iron curtain” speech (which he had titled “The Sinews of Peace”), essentially inaugurating the Cold War. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” Churchill proclaimed, noting the importance of “a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States” to fighting the “fifth columns” that “constitute a growing challenge and peril to Christian civilisation.” :: Also, read or listen (mp3) to the full speech. :: Also, I feel compelled to note that today in 1979 Voyager I made its closest approach to Jupiter and it is National Tree Planting day in Iran. In my head these are all connected.